Visible light-driven efficient photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes by conducting polymer/Fe and Cu doped ZnO photocatalyst

The in-situ polymerization method was adopted to synthesise polythiophene (PTh) and their nanocomposites with 4 wt% Fe and Cu doped ZnO (4FCZ). The structure, morphology, and optical characteristics of synthesized polythiophene doped FCZ nanocomposites (PFCZ) were analyzed by using powder-X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Xray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX), Attenuated total reflection (ATR)-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, UV-Vis DRS analysis, Elemental Mapping analysis, Photoluminescence (PL) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The PFCZ nanocomposites with varying loadings of PTh (1PFCZ, 5PFCZ and 10PFCZ) have been prepared and subjected into photocatalytic dye degradation of organic dyes in artificial reactors and in the presence of sunlight by using H2O2 as an oxidizer. 5PFCZ degrades MB, RhB, RB, BY, and AR, but when compared to 4FCZ, it exhibits higher efficiency specifically in degrading RB. Therefore, RB was chosen as a targeted pollutant to examine the effect of PTh. We have varied other CPs such as polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPy) in the place of PTh in PFCZ. As a result, 5PFCZ degrade RB efficiently when compared to various CPs (5PyFCZ, 5PaFCZ) and different PTh load (1PFCZ & 10PFCZ) in both artificial reactor and in the presence of sunlight. 5PFCZ degrade RB 87.3 % and 89.3 % in artificial reactors and in natural sunlight respectively. The most significant advantage of this catalyst and experimental setup is that it requires 1 mg of catalyst and 1 mL of H2O2 to degrade organic dyes. This research approach is simple, cost-effective and facilitates in the large-scale treatment of wastewater.